First Date
by Kyarorain
Summary: Ash is extremely nervous about his first date. How will it go?


**First Date**

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Last ficlet for iPod challenge, and the song is "Minna ga Ita Kara." It's Pearlshipping too.

Nintendo and Game Freak own Pokémon. I don't own any of it...

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He shouldn't be this nervous. It was only a date after all, and he was just going to go with her to a restaurant and eat some food. That was all. Food was good. He was looking forward to eating food, oh yeah, and seeing her of course. Was it his fault his stomach was loudly demanding food and he couldn't think of much else? Well, apart from the fact he was nervous about his first ever date.

Before he knew it, Ash was picking up the phone and frantically dialling Brock's number. He had to ask the paint covered child standing on the other side of the phone to go and get Brock a few times before she finally did so. Then Brock appeared with a screaming toddler hanging on his hip. "Ash? Now really isn't a good time. I'm afraid some of the kids are going to blow up the kitchen while baking cookies and the other half seem intent on redecorating the entire house."

Ash bit his bottom lip. "Now really isn't a good time to tell me how not to screw up my date?"

The sound of shattering could be heard in the distance on Brock's side of the phone. "As long as you don't have a demented frog stabbing you, you'll be fine!" He hastily put down the phone and cut off the call.

Ash put down the phone as well and sighed. "I guess calling Brock wasn't the best idea." Brock could be a bit crazy when it came to wooing the women, but he couldn't think of anyone else to ask for dating tips. Maybe he could ask Tracey, but as far as he knew, Tracey had only ever dated one girl who was still his girlfriend. It just seemed too weird to ask Tracey what it was like to date Misty for that matter, seeing as she was another one of his close friends.

Suddenly, the phone rang, startling Ash. He hastily picked up the receiver and the videoscreen came on, revealing Dawn. "Hey, Dawn, what's the matter?"

"Oh, I'm just checking to see if you're ready yet," Dawn replied cheerfully. "Wouldn't want you to be late."

"Don't worry, I'll be there," Ash assured her. He didn't think it was really necessary of her to call just to make sure of that. "There's no way my stomach would let me be late. In fact, I'm already hungry."

Dawn softly chuckled. "Okay, well, I'm looking forward to seeing you there." She glanced down toward her feet. "Poor Piplup isn't very happy about being left behind."

"Huh, you're leaving Piplup behind?" Ash looked at her blankly. "How come?"

Dawn stared at him in disbelief. "It's a _date, _Ash, for just the two of us. Don't tell me you were going to bring Pikachu along."

"Aw, man." Ash hadn't really thought about that. Now how was he going to explain it to Pikachu?"

"I know you two don't like being apart. I don't really like leaving Piplup alone either," Dawn said. "Still, a date is pretty special, you know. It's supposed to be just us. Hmm, I wonder if Buneary would like to double date with Pikachu sometime?"

A bead of sweat trickled down Ash's head. "No offence to Buneary, but I'm not sure Pikachu would like that idea."

"Heh, I was just kidding around." Dawn winked at him. "Well, see you at the restaurant then."

Ash put down the phone as the conversation came to an end and made his way to the kitchen, where he raided the fridge for ketchup. Pikachu was probably going to need some consolation for being left alone tonight after all.

Fortunately, Pikachu didn't take the news too badly and Ash left for the restaurant, arriving half an hour later. Dawn was already there, seated at a table for two.

"Right on time," Dawn commented. "I wouldn't expect less of you after I went to the trouble of calling you."

"I'm nervous enough as it is," Ash admitted, sitting in the empty chair. "I'm not going to screw things up by being late. Do you think they have burgers here?"

Before Dawn could give an incredulous response, a waiter approached their table and handed them a menu each. "What would you like to drink?" Ash requested a soda and Dawn replied that she just wanted water. The waiter left them to peruse the menus.

"Whoah," Ash muttered, looking over the choices. "The prices are really high. Looks like they don't have burgers, but they have a lot of fancy food."

"Well, it is a fancy restaurant," Dawn pointed out. "My mom used to take me out to these kinds of places pretty often. Being a top co-ordinator pays really well. Anyway, we probably shouldn't order anything too expensive."

"Good idea." Ash swallowed, scarcely able to tear his eyes away from the astronomical prices. He sorely missed the free food of the Pokémon centers, but those were hardly ideal places to be dating. No way he was that cheap.

"The food sounds pretty nice." Dawn fell silent, looking at the list of dishes.

Ash did the same, feeling bewildered by all the dishes with foreign names. At least they had descriptions, so he could identify them.

The waiter returned with their drinks a few minutes later and took their orders. The food was served half an hour later and they eagerly ate their food, commenting on how good it was. It was expensive, but definitely worth the price. The dessert was just as good.

"You picked a good restaurant," Ash said, after paying the check.

"Well, actually... I kind of asked May if she knew a good restaurant around here." Dawn smiled sheepishly. "I figured she would know."

Ash and Dawn left their table and walked out of the restaurant to suddenly be greeted by a man, woman and suspiciously small person with a furry face and whiskers. Of course, neither of them noticed his bizarre looking face.

The not so mysterious woman clasped her hands together and smiled. "We are currently doing a report on restaurants for the local newspaper. Would it be alright if we asked you some questions and took your picture?"

The equally not so mysterious man held up a camera. "I'll take a really good picture of you two." Unknown to them, the rather large camera actually held a grabbing hand designed for catching hold of electric mice.

"We would like your Pikachu to be in the shot, so if you would...." The midget frowned. He had been about to request that Ash let it up on his shoulder, so that the one with the camera could grab it, but then he realised that Pikachu was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Pikachu?" His partners looked around frantically, trying to spot the mouse Pokémon. In their latest attempt to grab Pikachu, they had not noticed his absence and that was their fatal mistake.

Ash raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "How did you know I have a Pikachu?"

The trio reacted with nervous grins, all of them sweating bullets.

"Um... lucky guess?" asked James.

"Oh, no, it's just that we've seen you on TV and you always had that Pikachu with you," Jessie gabbled. "We just thought it would be here."

"Uh huh!" Meowth nodded frantically.

Dawn folded her arms and frowned. "Nice try, Team Rocket."

"Geez!" Ash exclaimed in frustration. "You guys even have to annoy me while I'm on a date?"

"Huh?" The trio stared at him in astonishment.

"The twerp's on a date?" James stuttered out.

"Oh my. He's grown up so much," Jessie commented. "Sooner or later, we won't be able to call him the twerp anymore."

"They grow up so fast." Meowth sniffled and wiped his teary eyes with a handkerchief.

Ash rolled his eyes and took Dawn by the arm, hastily pulling her away from the Pokémon thieves. "I swear those guys get lamer every day," he muttered.

"I guess it's a good thing I told you to have Pikachu stay behind, huh?" Dawn smiled wryly. "I can't believe they are still harassing you."

"Well, they don't do it quite so much anymore." Ash glanced toward a nearby park. "Shall we go over there?" Seeing Dawn nod in response, they walked into the park and sat down on a bench.

Dawn gazed up at the dark sky. "The stars are out tonight. It sure is pretty."

Ash leaned back against the bench and looked up. "Yeah, you're right." After a minute of silence, he spoke again. "So, it was a good date, right?"

"Yeah, it was." Dawn rested her head against his shoulder, smiling. "We should do it again sometime. I had a really good time."

Ash turned his head and his brown eyes met with Dawn's blue pair. He moved his head down until his lips met with hers and they wrapped their arms around each other in a gentle embrace.

After what seemed like a long time, the two eventually parted with matching smiles on their faces.

"You can pick the place next time," Dawn said. "We'll take Pikachu and Piplup with us too. I wouldn't want them to feel too left out. As long as we get to have fun and be together, it doesn't matter where we go."

"I'll think of somewhere real good." Ash felt a chilly wind blow past them. "It's getting cold. We should be going now."

They got up from the bench and walked out of the park. Before they parted ways again, they shared another kiss.

"See you tomorrow?" Dawn asked.

"Sure." Ash kissed her again and they waved at each other as they went their separate ways. He quickly returned home to find Pikachu snoozing next to an empty bottle of ketchup and collapsed onto the sofa, smiling happily. Already, he was looking forward to their next date. This dating thing wasn't so scary after all.


End file.
